PAGALUNGAN, Maguindanao – As millions of children in new freshly-ironed uniforms troop to classrooms when school opens nationwide on Monday, classes continue for 504 of their peers in five makeshift salanggui-protected and nipa-roofed classrooms at the Inug-ug Elementary School in war-torn Barangay Inug-ug here.

But on July 16 or a month after the regular school opening, 11 boys and five girls will march -- some on their bare feet and soiled farm clothes – on a stage to receive their diplomas and finally proclaim to all that they have fulfilled their much-sought dream of completing primary school.

Minus the trimmings of memorable graduation rites in urban centers and more peaceful localities in the country, valedictorian Norodin Mangamanan and salutatorian Ali Salim will lead their classmates to a trek to an uncertain future ahead of them.

Mangamanan is 17 years old. Topping the class does not make him any different from his younger batchmates who, like him, do not know when they can get away from the confines of evacuation camps they sought refuge in following fierce military-rebel clashes in the vicinity of their homes in sitios Agakan, Butig, Langgang, Gantong and Sitio Proper.

Luckier to be finishing elementary school at the age of 12, Salim is happy, but only for the moment. He dreams of getting into high school but the war he never understood and abject poverty have caught up with his simple ambition of helping his family get through the lowest ebb of their depressing lives.

Their classmates who will momentarily beam with pride and take a bow before their expectant parents, school officials, teachers, schoolmates and friends share the anxieties of their batch topnotchers.

Freed from ignorance, they do not know when they would be freed from fear, want and injustice.

Last Friday’s declaration of Barangay Inug-ug as a "sanctuary of peace" – and area free from military and rebel incursions where the community is empowered to decide their course of socio-economic development -- may help the children overcome the trauma of armed conflict.

But for the 16 evacuee-graduates averaging 13 years old, returning to normalcy will take a long time, much more getting secondary education at the nearest public high school, which is kilometers from their real homes or from evacuation camps.

Sangotin Guiaman, school principal and graduating class principal, confides that the July 16 graduation is Inug-ug Elementary School’s first commencement exercise. But developments could have reduced the commencement activity to "pure drawing."

He recalls that the three-classroom original school edifice – built by a concerned community out of available indigenous light materials – was eaten by angry flames and turned into ashes on the night of April 9, this year.

Fifteen cement posts and a carpet of black ash outlined the remains of the 100-square meter school building, serving as a grim reminder of acts only men without consciences could do in utter disregard of civility and the future of the youth.

"How the children and their parents cried when they learned that their school was burning," recalls Noraida Abdullah Karim, a community organizing officer of the non-government organization (NGO) Community and Family Services International (CFSI) managing the school.

A pupil who lived about 500 meters away from the burning school site, on seeing the flames, climbed to the roof of his home, a nipa hut, and shed tears for hours, unable to comprehend why he, a child, should suffer from a conflict he had nothing to do with.

His classmates and school friends – all 504 boys and girls from Grades I to VI relying on the school for a "permanent primary education," cried with him when they met the morning after the blaze, Karim said.

It was another sad experience for children who, in the past, have gotten accustomed to intermittent schooling because they have been evading bullets and bombs and running with their parents and siblings from one safe refuge to another, depending on the goodwill of government welfare groups, NGOs and benefactors, etc. etc. etc.

The military was quick to blame rebels for burning the last ray of academic hope for Pagalungan’s evacuee-children, but whoever was responsible for the atrocity remained a mystery to this day and nobody has been made to account for the crime.

Rohaina Abedin, 10, a Grade III pupil, is a resident of Barangay Kudal, about five kilometers from the school. The fourth among six siblings, Rohaina desires for that elusive bright spot under Allah’s golden sun.

A child born amid a cruel armed conflict, her desire to finish school is also hampered by the inadequacies of her family. Rohaina’s father gets his meager income as a marginal copra gatherer, whose contract could expire anytime – when harvest is over or when rebels and the military play their destructive war games.

She finished her Grades I and II at the Pagalungan Central Elementary School, a kilometer’s walk from her home in Kudal. Lately, she has joined the family in an evacuation camp and has resumed her studies at the Inug-ug Elementary School.

Rohaina feels blessed, having found a new school. But she cannot help shed tears when she remembers walking to and from school with an empty stomach and only a banana as her "baon."

Impoverished and displaced by war. This was exactly the situation of Rohaina and hundreds of other children like her that the CFSI came to their immediate rescue.

In a project dubbed as "Arms Are For Hugging," the Philippine-based CFSI put up the first-ever school in Barangay Inug-ug in a 15,000-square meter lot three Inug-ug residents donated, shortly after military-rebel fighting in the area in 2000.

Dr. Fred Balleza, CFSI project officer, says the construction of the school was one whole community undertaking. Lumber was donated, and the people volunteered their time, energy and labor to put up the school.

Seven certified teachers brave harsh socio-political conditions to share knowledge.

Seven tutors, aptly called sumpat (Maguindanaon word for connection or bridge) walk lengths, rain or shine, to the homes of "academically-slow" children and those who could not go to school for one reason or another to keep them abreast of their lessons.

Six extension workers provide other services to erase the traumatic effects of war and poverty from the children’s minds and hearts.

Balleza says CFSI has adopted a comprehensive approach to the situation, integrating psycho-social services and peace education to the normal curriculum and the teaching of Islamic values and the Arabic language common in the madrasah (Islamic school).

"It is one of its kind in the whole country, if not around the world," he exclaims.

Shariffah Agar, another CFSI community organizing officer, says the Inug-ug Elementary School does not follow the regular school year schedule, which is why classes will only close on July 7.

School opens at 7:00 a.m. and classes end at 3:00 p.m.

Concerned with the general well-being welfare of their pupils, CFSI does not only pursue the children’s academic training, Agar stresses. "We also equip them with the tools for learning, providing them free uniforms and school supplies."

The school also operates a kitchen where halal (Islamic-prepared) food is prepared for the children’s lunch Rohaina and her schoolmates share inside classrooms or under the coconut trees that surround the school’s premises.

While their children go to school, parents undergo CFSI-initiated continuing skills and livelihood training programs.

Sadness prevailed when the school was razed to the ground last April 9, but there was no resignation, CFSI project officer Balleza points out.

"As fast as whoever burned the school, the community acted speedily to rebuild it," he adds.

With undampened spirits, the Inug-ug parents and children joined hands to put up, in record time, five makeshift classrooms and their kitchen,

On the other hand, CFSI accepted contributions from the Japan Social Funds, Philippines Out of School Youth and Children Development Project and the Consuelo Foundation to build a new school building.

Assistance also came from the Canada Fund, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, the Beacon School, Oxfam GB, MSF, Save the Children, and the Department of Education Central Office, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao regional agencies.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last Friday, in a visit here, aptly described the persistence of the people of Inug-ug to rise up against instability by saying that in their desire to within a sanctuary of peace, "they will be free as desired by their hearts."

ILIGAN CITY -- For President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the question is no longer Tubod or not Tubod.

"It will be here, it will be in Tubod," was how the President answered questions as to the fate of this year's twice-postponed Palarong Pambansa, the national games originally scheduled last May in Tubod, Lanao del Norte, some 65 kms from this capital city. It was reset for this month and then shelved indefinitely on account of the shaky peace and order situation in the region.

The President, however, refused to give any specific date for its holding, saying it will all depend on the assurance that there will be no third- party saboteurs.

"I have the confidence that they will not do anything," she said, referring to the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front. "But sad to say, we are not only two parties here. There are third forces who don't want the peace talks to succeed, who don't want my administration to succeed."

She did not elaborate, saying she doesn't want to compromise the safety of the participants, mostly school children.

The President, however, assured the games will still be push through.

"As to when, it will all depend.. But I'm not putting it anywhere. Whenever it will be, it will be in Tubod," she assured mediamen who attended the dinner tendered for her Saturday by local officials and childhood friends who pledged their support for her Strong Republic program.

The President arrived here Saturday morning amid a tumultuous welcome from placard-bearing, banner-waiving mammoth crowd at the Gawad Kalinga Missionville Housing Project who considers her one of their own.

"Malipayong pag-abot, mahal naming Presidente na Iliganon,"proclaimed one of the placards.

The Chief Executive spent her childhood years with her grandmother in this city of varied culture and breath-taking waterfalls and for many, her arrival here was some sort of a homecoming.

The housing project, built from the ashes of the fire that razed 200 houses and left 258 families homeless in September last year, will see the rise a total of 261 units, 121 of which have been completed.

The President awarded the beneficiaries of the project their respective certificates in the presence of Iligan Mayor Franklin Quijano and Housing Secretary Michael Defensor.

ILIGAN CITY -- It was supposed to be Father's Day but the homily of the mass which President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo attended at the Redemptorist Church in Barangay San Miguel here Sunday was all about how to behold thy Mother.

Appropriate or not, the President appeared all pleased at the only day where she has no other scheduled activity during her eight-day sortie of Mindanao to check on her Mindanao National Initiative (Mindanao Natin) program.

Wearing a light blue dress, the Chief Executive was a picture of calm and bliss as she heard mass in the city where she spent her childhood years with her grandmother and around folks who consider her their very own.

Girls garbed in colorful traditional tribal costumes swayed to the beat of the native Igaon dance which was interspersed during the mass attended by a Sunday crowd that spilled over to the sprawling lawn of the modestly-sized Catholic church.

Although she is not with the First Gentlemen Jose Miguel Arroyo, the President intimated to media men during dinner with local officials Saturday that she will call her husband to greet him Happy Father's day.

Her wish though for the special occasion is for all the fathers in the country to continue to be blessed for them to be able to support their families.

"I hope they will be able to find jobs," she said referring to those fathers presently unemployed. "Rest assured that the government will continue to find solution to the country's unemployment problems."

The President addressed part of the unemployment problem in the region Saturday when she inducted into office some 500 out of school, out of work youth, aged 15 to 24, from 18 municipalities in Lanao del Sur upon her arrival in Marawi City in line with the government's Kabuhayan Para sa Kapayapaan program.

The group of youth volunteers are members of the community Sala'am Peace Corps engaged in peacekeeping and socio-civic activities.

According to the Chief Executive, 1,000 youth members from Maguindanao and another 1,000 from Lanao del Sur are being tapped under auspices of the Fund for Child Labor program aimed at generating employment and preserving existing jobs.

It was also in Marawi City, before some 5,000 madaris or teachers where the President announced the appropriation of some P40 million for the construction of new classrooms in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao after finding out that in 137 schools, there are classes holding more than 100 students.

"We have to make sure that these problems are addressed because we want to make sure that the next generation is capable and ready to assume bigger responsibilities," she said during Saturday's dinner.

She dwelt on the Education department's Teaching the Teacher concept of upgrading the quality of instruction in schools.

According to her, under the program espoused by Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus, some 150 high school teachers from the National Capitol Region will go through diagnostic tests to determine their capabilities and serve as instructors in their respective schools.

Results will be reviewed and some guidelines made before the whole concept is pushed to the regions, according to de Jesus.